By Jeremy Urquhart
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An “Oscar bait movie” might not be as easy to define as a horror film, a comedy, or a thriller, but there are certain characteristics found within such definable movies. Oscar bait films can be good, of course, and they can also be anything but, with the worst ones potentially feeling more like bait than the good ones, given they have certain qualities meant to appeal to Academy Awards voters, but present such things cynically, without passion, or just for the sake of getting some awards love.
If a movie tackles weighty issues, tells a true story, or deals with sweeping/broad emotions, it might be Oscar bait. Throughout the first half of the 2020s, no Oscar bait has been as bad (or as successful) as something like Crash, at least, but the following movies did seem overly keen to win Academy Awards while themselves not being great, quality-wise. Some still found a little success, but even the decent ones below still carry a certain stink associated with Oscar bait, and you can only hold your nose for so long while watching these until you feel too uncomfortable and just give up.
10 'Malcolm & Marie' (2021)
Directed by Sam Levinson

Though is not an old movie, and given it also starred the very famous Zendaya and the moderately famous John David Washington, it’s been pretty much forgotten over the last several years. It was clearly trying to be something artsy and bold, though, with a stripped-down story and scope centering on just two people inside a single location for the film’s whole duration. Plus, it was shot in black and white because… um… because that’s artsier? Or something.
One of the characters is a filmmaker, and Oscar voters have loved movies about filmmaking in the past. It also tries to go big and showy with its acting, and Malcolm & Marie also just feels like it insists on a kind of importance that it doesn’t entirely have. Zendaya and Washington aren’t bad, considering what they're working with, but this does feel a bit like a movie that wanted to be adored come Awards season, and instead got (mostly) ignored.

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Malcolm & Marie
9 'Amsterdam' (2022)
Directed by David O. Russell

Amsterdam has a ludicrous cast considering the actual merits of the movie itself, but at least most of the people who were featured here came out the other end with their careers generally unscathed. It takes place all the way back in the 1930s, and has ambitions that run out of control with its story about a complex series of events following a murder, and how such a crime might be part of a broader historical conspiracy.
Quite literally losing the plot and never getting it back, (and not in a fun Thomas Pynchon-like way or anything), Amsterdam is just a mess all around. Both in front of the camera and behind it, there were talented people involved who aren’t exactly strangers to attention from the Academy Awards, but this film wasn’t it; this one swayed very few, and it’s not too hard to understand why.

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Amsterdam
R
Drama
History
Comedy
- Release Date
- October 7, 2022
- Director
- David O. Russell
- Cast
- Andrea Riseborough, Robert De Niro, John David Washington, Matthias Schoenaerts, Christian Bale, Alessandro Nivola, Taylor Swift, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon, Timothy Olyphant, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Zoe Saldana, Margot Robbie, Anya Taylor-Joy
- Runtime
- 134 minutes
8 'Being the Ricardos' (2021)
Directed by Aaron Sorkin
With a story that takes place decades ago, and a focus on two people who were involved in show business, it’s not hard to define something like Being the Ricardos as possible Oscar bait. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are the two central figures here: a pair of people who were married in real life and became famous for playing a couple on the legendary sitcom I Love Lucy.
It has to be acknowledged that, as far as Oscar bait goes, Being the Ricardos found some success, with three cast members – Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem, and J. K. Simmons – all receiving nominations for their performances. But outside the acting, it’s a fairly bland and by-the-numbers biographical film, doing little to elevate things dramatically or visually in ways that would make the non-acting parts of the movie also great.

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Being the Ricardos
7 'Don't Look Up' (2021)
Directed by Adam McKay

It may have had aspirations of being a great science fiction film of sorts (one very “of the times,” admittedly), but Don’t Look Up had too many flaws to be truly remarkable. That being said, you can almost respect what it’s going for in its exploration of uniquely 21st-century madness and division, and the way certain people/groups stand in the way of humanity’s potential salvation.
Looking at political and environmental issues with as little subtlety as possible, Don’t Look Up sometimes works as an angry, impassioned, and chaotic film. It does get lost a few times, and it probably could’ve benefited from dialing things back just a little… but at least it’s one of the more ambitious Oscar bait-y kinds of movies out there. A swing and a disappointing hit is better than a swing and a miss, after all.

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Don't Look Up
R
Comedy
Drama
Sci-Fi
- Release Date
- December 10, 2021
- Director
- Adam McKay
- Cast
- Meryl Streep, Tyler Perry, Himesh Patel, Cate Blanchett, Timothée Chalamet, Tomer Sisley, Jonah Hill, Leonardo DiCaprio, Scott Mescudi, Jennifer Lawrence, Mark Rylance, Rob Morgan, Melanie Lynskey, Ron Perlman, Michael Chiklis, Ariana Grande
- Runtime
- 145 minutes
6 'Golda' (2023)
Directed by Guy Nattiv

A dicey story is handled/told in a less-than-stellar way in Golda, which could probably count itself as one of the worst war movies in recent memory, even if it does showcase Helen Mirren’s acting chops. She plays Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, with the film mainly focused on her involvement in the Yom Kippur War, which was fought for several weeks in October 1973.
Israel was on one side of the conflict, and the primary nations on the other side were Egypt and Syria. Golda, as a film, tries a little to tackle this controversial event from Israel’s history, but there are things passed over or de-emphasized that may rub some viewers the wrong way. Maybe it’s best to leave it at that; Golda isn't entirely a failure, but neither is it going to be for everyone, nor feel entirely coherent/complete, as far as telling a historical story is concerned.
Golda
PG-13
Drama
Biography
History
Where to Watch
*Availability in US
- Release Date
- August 25, 2023
- Director
- Guy Nattiv
- Cast
- Helen Mirren, Henry Goodman, Emma Davies, Claudette Williams
- Runtime
- 100 minutes
5 'House of Gucci' (2021)
Directed by Ridley Scott

There are some mildly nice things that can be said about House of Gucci. As far as Ridley Scott movies go, the man’s certainly made worse. Also, Adam Driver is here, and he’s always watchable. Plus, the rest of the cast is made up of talented actors, and it can be fun seeing a lot of them ham it up in what’s a sometimes campy crime movie (Lady Gaga and Al Pacino do entertain, in this regard).
But House of Gucci never commits fully to dark comedy or camp, and a good chunk of it feels as though it might be trying to take itself more seriously as a crime/drama film that tells a real-life story. In that sense, and owing to the caliber of acting talent here, as well as the unwaveringly long runtime, this does qualify as mild Oscar bait. But, if you can find a few fun things here and there within this overlong movie, it can be sometimes watchable.

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House of Gucci
R
Thriller
Drama
Crime
Where to Watch
- stream
- rent
- buy
Not available
Not available
Not available
*Availability in US
- Release Date
- November 24, 2021
- Director
- Ridley Scott
- Cast
- Jeremy Irons, Reeve Carney, Miloud Mourad Benamara, Adam Driver, Lady Gaga, Mehdi Nebbou, Salma Hayek Pinault, Jack Huston, Al Pacino, Camille Cottin, Mădălina Diana Ghenea, Jared Leto
- Runtime
- 2h 37m
4 'Maestro' (2023)
Directed by Bradley Cooper

Few people have so blatantly wanted to win an Oscar (or multiple Oscars) quite like Bradley Cooper did when he made Maestro. This was clearly a passion project for him, seeing as he co-wrote, co-produced, starred in, and directed Maestro, a bold and seemingly ambitious film all about the life of Leonard Bernstein. It spanned years and went big in many ways, but never really got to the heart of what made Bernstein such a legendary figure.
One comes away from Maestro feeling weirdly cold about the whole thing. It’s a film that likely means a great deal to Cooper himself, and you can understand or coldly assess that passion… you just can’t truly feel it. In the end, it makes Maestro feel kind of desperate in a way. It’s like a handsome and charismatic individual continually insisting upon their handsomeness and charisma until such insistence makes the tangible positive qualities diminish, if not dry up entirely. If Cooper dialed everything back a little while still putting a decent amount of effort into his next film, the Oscars may well come his way.

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Maestro
3 'The Son' (2022)
Directed by Florian Zeller

Younger than Malcolm & Marie, but somehow even more forgettable, The Son was Florian Zeller’s follow-up to The Father. That 2020 film could also be described as Oscar bait, given it was all about highlighting great acting and dealing with difficult subject matter, but it was also a high-quality movie, so its seeming desire to win big at the Oscars could be overlooked. Really, it was too gripping an exploration of dementia to care, and Anthony Hopkins was also phenomenal.
In contrast, The Son falls flat dramatically and emotionally, noticeably because not all the central performances here are as strong as they need to be. With that weakness, flaws in the writing and directing also start shining through, and so, at a point, The Son just kind of collapses in on itself, faltering about as much as The Father thrived. Talk about disappointing one’s parent!

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The Son
PG-13
Drama
- Release Date
- November 10, 2022
- Director
- Florian Zeller
- Cast
- Hugh Jackman, Zen McGrath, Vanessa Kirby, Laura Dern, Anthony Hopkins, William Hope, George Cobell, Shin-Fei Chen, Nancy Baldwin, Akie Kotabe, Isaura Barbé-Brown, Erick Hayden, Joseph Mydell, Rachel Handshaw, Gabriel Ecoffey, George Potts, Reza Diako, Danielle Lewis, Gretchen Egolf, Alex Mugnaioni, Hugh Quarshie, Mercedes Bahleda, Van Pierre, Jesse Cilio, Patrice Bevans
- Runtime
- 123 minutes
2 'Hillbilly Elegy' (2020)
Directed by Ron Howard
While it created a little bit of a stir in 2020, Hillbilly Elegy ended up back on people’s radars in 2024, as a result of the source material’s writer, J.D. Vance, becoming Donald Trump’s pick for Vice-President. All that aside, though, the film does feel as though it’s trying to be an awards contender; then as much as now, especially with the lengths its two main stars – Amy Adams and Glenn Close – go to here to play against type.
Narratively, Hillbilly Elegy does also try to look at serious issues affecting America, looking at the history of a relatively poor family across multiple generations. It is a fairly mawkish movie, in the end, and interestingly ended up being represented at both the Oscars and the Razzies, with Glenn Close getting a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Oscars and a Worst Supporting Actress nomination at the Golden Raspberry Awards.

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Hillbilly Elegy
1 'Back to Black' (2024)
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson

Amy Winehouse was at the center of one of the best documentaries in recent times (2015’s Amy), and was also highlighted and depicted in the more standard biographical film, Back to Black (2024). The former is clearly superior to the latter, with the second of those Winehouse movies only really having value as a feature-length example of what not to do when making a movie about the life of a brilliant yet troubled musician.
Back to Black came out early in 2024, which could disqualify it from being considered 100% Oscar bait, given so many movies that want Academy Awards come out closer to the Academy Awards themselves. But it’s unlikely anyone would’ve responded very well to this mess of a biopic regardless of when it was ultimately released. Seriously, just watch – or rewatch – 2015’s Amy instead.

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Back to Black
NEXT: No American President Had Better Taste in Movies Than Jimmy Carter
- Hillbilly Elegy
- Maestro
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